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The present invention relates generally to computers, telecommunications, and computer network systems, and more particularly to an improved method and system for efficiently managing and retrieving information over a network.
The World-Wide Web (xe2x80x9cthe Webxe2x80x9d) is an Internet distributed information retrieval system holding a tremendous amount of information in various locations around the world. Users of the Web perform searches on search engines that have been developed in order to find and retrieve information on topics and areas in which the users are interested. Presently, most of these search engines, such as Yahoo! and Infoseek, perform indexing of every document found on the Web. These search engines then permit a user to type in plain text keywords, which are used by the search engines to scan and match every single document against the keywords entered.
Various search engine technologies of differing levels of sophistication, some having artificial intelligence, have developed to meet the quest for relevant information on the Web. Nevertheless, this technology is still hampered by limitations. For example, a user of a search engine inevitably encounters false hits, in which irrelevant information is retrieved by the search engine. In fact, thousands of results, many irrelevant, can be returned by a search engine if the user types in a very common search phrase. In addition, any present search engine may miss web pages that are actually relevant to what a user of the search engine is seeking, such as when the user fails to enter the proper combination of search keywords.
An alternative approach to finding information on the Web employs structured descriptions of web resources using metadata by organizing this information in a manner that a computer can understand and process. RDF is a specification that is presently being developed by the W3C (the World-Wide Web Consortium) as a format for processing metadata for resources on the Internet, including the World-Wide Web.
What is needed is a method and apparatus for searching for and discovering information, such as web resources, in a more flexible and sophisticated manner. What is further needed is a method and apparatus for finding information associated with RDF on the World-Wide Web.
The present invention provides a method and apparatus for managing information in an information resource system containing a server, a client, and a database, by generating metadata using an import agent, determining at least one match using a match agent, and dispatching the at least one match or a result associated with the match using a delivery agent. In an aspect of the invention, the metadata may be RDF metadata. In another aspect of the invention, the match agent may determine the match using an RQL query.
In another aspect of the invention, a method and system is provided for managing information using a match template in an information resource system having a first set of metadata and a second set of metadata, by comparing the first set of metadata with the second set of metadata, dynamically generating a query based on the first set of metadata, and executing the query against the second set of metadata.
In a further aspect of the invention, a method and system is provided for managing information in an information resource system having an import agent, a match agent, and a metadata repository by importing information to the metadata repository using the import agent and dynamically generating a metadata query based on the metadata repository using the match agent.
Still other embodiments of the present invention are and will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, wherein is shown and described only the embodiments of the invention by way of illustration of the best modes contemplated for carrying out the invention. As will be realized, the invention is capable of modification in various obvious aspects, all without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Accordingly, the drawings and detailed description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not restrictive.